PRESS RELEASE FOR STS-71 PRESS KIT
RELEASE: 95-77
SHUTTLE AND SPACE STATION MIR SET FOR HISTORIC LINK-UP
Twenty years after the world's two greatest
spacefaring nations and Cold War adversaries staged a
dramatic link-up between piloted spacecraft, the space
programs of the United States and Russia will again meet in
Earth orbit when Space Shuttle Atlantis docks to the Mir
Space Station in June. "This flight heralds a new era of
friendship and cooperation between our two countries," said
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin. "It will lay the
foundation for construction of an international Space
Station later this decade."
The STS-71 mission is the first of seven planned Space
Shuttle-Mir link-ups between 1995 and 1997, including
rendezvous, docking and crew transfers, which will pave the
way toward assembly of the international Space Station
beginning in November 1997.
The STS-71 crew will be commanded by Robert L. "Hoot"
Gibson who will be making his fifth Shuttle flight.
Charles J. Precourt will serve as pilot and will be making
his second space flight. The three STS-71 mission
specialists aboard Atlantis will include Ellen S. Baker,
Mission Specialist-1, who will be making her third flight,
Gregory J. Harbaugh, Mission Specialist-2, who will be
making his third flight and Bonnie Dunbar, Mission
Specialist-3, who will be making her fourth space flight.
Also aboard Atlantis will be Cosmonauts Anatoly Y.
Solovyev, making his fourth space flight, and Nikolai M.
Budarin, making his first flight. Solovyev and Budarin are
designated as the Mir 19 crew and will remain aboard Mir
when Atlantis undocks from the nine-year old space station
and returns to Earth with the Mir 18 crew.
Launch of Atlantis on the STS-71 mission is currently
targeted for June 23, 1995 at approximately 5:06 p.m. EDT
from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39-A. The
actual launch time may vary by a few minutes based on
calculations of Mir's precise location in space at the time
of liftoff due to Shuttle rendezvous phasing requirements.
The available launch period, or "window" to launch
Atlantis, is approximatley five minutes each day.
The STS-71 mission is scheduled to last 10 days, 19
hours, 31 minutes. A 5:06 p.m. launch on June 23 would be
followed by a landing at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle
Landing Facility on July 4 at 12:37 p.m. EDT.
STS-71's rendezvous and docking with the Mir actually
begins with the precisely timed launch of Atlantis setting
it on a course for rendezvous with the Mir station. Over
the next two days, periodic firings of Atlantis' small
thruster engines will gradually bring the Shuttle to closer
proximity to Mir.
Unlike most rendezvous procedures that typically have
the Shuttle approaching from directly in front of its
target, Atlantis will aim for a point directly below Mir,
along the Earth radius vector (R-Bar), an imaginary line
drawn between the Mir center of gravity and the center of
Earth. Approaching along the R-Bar, from directly
underneath the Mir, allows natural forces to brake
Atlantis' approach more than would occur along a standard
Shuttle approach from directly in front of Mir. The R-Bar
approach also reduces the small number of jet firings close
to the Mir avoiding damage or contamination of its
electricity-producing solar panels.
Joint scientific investigations will be carried out
inside the Spacelab module tucked in Atlantis' large cargo
bay. These investigations will provide more knowledge
about the human body and the microgravity environment.
Research in seven different medical and scientific
disciplines, begun during Mir 18, will conclude on STS-71.
Of the 28 experiments being conducted as part of the joint
U.S.-Russian cooperative effort, 15 will be performed as
part of the STS-71 mission.
The experiments take advantage of the unique
microgravity environment, which separates the effects of
gravity from the effects of physiologic change occurring
from other causes. Researchers will not only enhance
knowledge about spaceflight-induced physiologic changes,
but also advance understanding of such Earth-based
conditions as anemia, high blood pressure, osteoporosis,
kidney stones, balance disorders and immune deficiencies.
At the end of joint docked activities, Solovyev and
Budarin will assume responsibility for operations of the
Mir station. The Mir-18 crew who have been aboard the
station since March 16, are Commander Vladimir Dezhurov,
Flight Engineer Gennady Strekalov and Cosmonaut Researcher
and American astronaut Norm Thagard. They will join the
STS-71 crew for the return trip to Earth. Thagard will
return home with the American record for a single space
flight with more than 100 days in space. The previous
record was held by the Skylab-4 crew with 84 days in 1973-
1974. Thagard broke the record June 6, 1995.
Shuttle Mission STS-71 will be the 14th flight of
Atlantis and the 70th flight of the Space Shuttle system.
-end of general release-